Miracles
by avanti90
Summary: AU in which Piotr's resistance failed, and Barrayar remained a Cetagandan outpost. In a time of war, Captain Cordelia Naismith accepts a vital mission behind enemy lines.


"Drink," said a woman's voice.

Cordelia let out an inarticulate groan as she slowly regained consciousness. She felt water pressed to her lips, and she drank instinctively, taking gasping breaths in between. The uneven stone floor pressed daggers into her cheek, the world was spinning around her head, and her head itself felt as if it were on fire. _Stunned,_ she thought muzzily. _Danger. _

Gradually, she forced herself to open her eyes. The sight that met her was of booted feet, worn and mud-stained. She followed them upward, and blinked, counting five men and one woman, all armed, all watching her fixedly. At least one stunner was aimed steadily in her direction.

Her pack! Cordelia's head whipped around in a moment of blind panic - but no, it was there, lying open against the wall a little way off. It seemed that her captors hadn't damaged it, nor had they accidentally activated the self-destruct mechanism in the process.

Cordelia sat up very slowly, making no threatening movements, trying to get her bearings. She was in a cave of some sort, with tunnels leading off in various directions, and she could make out figures in the distant background - eating, drinking, and sleeping on the floor. This was a place where people lived, but there was nothing to mark it as someone's home. There was nothing here that could not be made to disappear at a moment's notice.

She felt a pair of hands on her shoulders, and the woman who had given her water hauled her to her feet, steadying her firmly but not unkindly. She was younger than Cordelia, with dark hair pulled back from her face, and a stunner at her belt – a stunner that, Cordelia now remembered, had been used on her.

"Captain Naismith," said a male voice - a heavy baritone, with the faintest trace of a Barrayaran accent underneath the words. Barrayaran, not Cetagandan.

A wave of relief washed over Cordelia. She'd accomplished her mission after all, just when it seemed doomed to disaster. She'd landed right on top of a Cetagandan patrol, fought them off, and then she'd had to waste precious days dodging her pursuers across the chemically devastated landscape of the Dendarii mountains, hunting for the remnants of the Barrayaran Resistance.

The Resistance, it seemed, had found her first.

She focused on the speaker. Cold, intent gray eyes scrutinized her in turn. Cordelia recognized the face from her briefings, and automatically came to rigid attention. "General Count Vorkosigan, sir."

Aral Vorkosigan was shorter than she'd expected, stocky and muscular, his olive skin marred by a vivid scar across one side of his face. Like everyone else in the camp, he wore civilian clothes in the local style, ready to blend into the surroundings if necessary. Cordelia's blue Expeditionary Force uniform, such a familiar sight on Beta, was glaringly out of place here, though she was as torn and muddy and rumpled as the best of the Barrayarans.

But Vorkosigan returned her salute sharply, accepting it as a matter of course. _Soldier_ was written clearly in every aspect of his bearing. Even the old, patched, mud-stained clothes had some aura of a uniform, some indefinable military air imparted by contact with his body.

"Captain Cordelia Naismith, Betan Expeditionary Force," said Cordelia. "I can prove my identity-"

"No need, Captain," said Vorkosigan briskly. "You told us your name in your sleep, under fast-penta. We've been tracking you for some days now - ever since we found the bodies of that Cetagandan patrol. Excellent work."

Captured, stunned, forcibly interrogated - Cordelia should have been angry, but instead she felt unreasonably pleased with herself at those words. "The Cetagandans found them too. They've got patrols are all over the mountains by now." It would be bitter irony if she brought retribution down on the very people she'd been sent to help.

Vorkosigan gave her a grim smile, almost terrifying. "That's exactly what we wanted them to do."

Cordelia wondered suddenly how many of the patrols she'd dodged had returned to their base. _Captured, stunned, forcibly interrogated - after being used as bait._ She guessed there would be little gained by a show of indignation at this peculiar brand of hospitality. Vorkosigan, by all accounts, was a harsh tactician, and had reason to be. This was a man who had had fought the Cetagandans almost his entire life, keeping alive a resistance that had been declared dead at least a dozen times- and, if some of the taller tales were to be believed, occasionally holding off nuclear weapons with little more than sticks and stones and bloody-mindedness.

"I've brought you news," she said quickly. "I don't know if you've heard - the Cetas have discovered a route from Komarr to Escobar, and Beta. They've invaded both lanets. When I left, they had already occupied most of Escobaran space, and the Betans were planning a counterattack."

Cordelia sensed the Barrayarans tense around her, but none of them seemed surprised. She hadn't expected them to be. After Barrayar, then Komarr, and most recently Marilac, there weren't many people left in the Nexus who believed in Cetagandan declarations of peace.

"And what does this have to do with us?" Vorkosigan asked her coolly.

Cordelia took a deep breath, and launched into the speech she'd come here to make. "General Vorkosigan, on behalf of my President, I offer you an alliance. You know why the Cetagandans are on your planet. Barrayar is the military and industrial base that sustains their invasion of the nexus. We believe we can force the Cetagandans to retreat, but we know it won't save us - unless we deny them a place to retreat to." She spread her hands in silence. "We need your help to make that happen, and we're willing to help you in turn."

Vorkosigan's eyes on her were incredulous. Cordelia had expected nothing less. Barrayar had seen well over half a century of occupation now, and the man in front of her had seen the most brutal parts of it with his own eyes. He'd watched the Cetagandans exterminate the Barrayaran Imperial line until he was the last one left - leader of a dwindling resistance, head of an absent government, Regent for an underage Emperor whom no one had seen and many doubted even existed.

Somewhere along the line, she realized, he had stopped dreaming of victory.

"Captain." Vorkosigan's voice was harsh. "I don't know what you've brought us, but weapons won't do what you want. You'd have to be carrying a miracle."

Without waiting for an answer, he walked over to Cordelia's heavy pack and opened it with strong hands. He stared inside. Cordelia knew what he was looking at. The Barrayarans would never have seen anything like them before. This was the cutting edge of Betan technology, of an industry that had grown up under a constant threat of war.

Vorkosigan frowned. "What _are_ these?"

Cordelia smiled. "They're called plasma mirror field generators, General."


End file.
